Elenor's Birth Part 1

Nate has been asking me to write this for awhile now and I agree it needs to happen. I want to make sure what I'm feeling is written down and recorded so that some day I can look back at this with Ele and tell her how she was born. So I'm going to do a day by day. Some may be longer and I might break up this post, but I am going to start with Friday November 5th. Also please note that I'm going to put in some of my personal feelings as I went through everything so there will be some personal things inside these posts.

Friday November 5th: 
Today I woke up and had just bought a bunch of cute shirts from the Shade outlet closing. I wore this super cute striped shirt that made me look ridiculously cute and pregnant, so I took a picture and uploaded it to Facebook. I had just hit my 31 week mark the day before, so I had 9 weeks left. Nate was heading to California for his Grandma's 90 birthday party. I wasn't allowed to travel so I was going to be without a husband for the weekend until Sunday afternoon. This wasn't very long especially since we went to lunch together before he left, but I was having a really hard time with him leaving. Before I left work I stayed late because I wanted to get more cauhgt up, for some reason I kept thinking, what if I can't come in on Monday? My little sister Sarah came and spent the night on Friday just to keep me company. I had a hard night and really missed Nate and for some reason I just really wanted him home, I cried a few times and even told him I didn't know why I was having such a hard time, I sort of feel now that it was because my body knew what was coming and knew I would need him.

Saturday November 6th: 
I really missed Nate today, seriously cried and called him a few times. I just wanted my husband back. I went over to my mom's house and did some homework and relaxed because I wasn't feeling well. It was kind of a lazy day. I went home, went to bed, slept horribly and missed my husband lots.

Sunday November 7th:
This morning I woke up and was getting ready for church. I walked into the bathroom and noticed my face was really swollen. I knew this was a sign of Pre-Eclampsia, it made me nervous. I called Bro. Black (we do Primary Music together) and told him I wouldn't be able to make it because I thought I needed to go in for a non stress test. He was understanding and concerned and told me to take care. I called Nate and told him through the now streaming tears that I felt something was wrong and I just wanted him home. He told me when his flight was supposed to land and I called my mom to tell her my symptoms. She told me to lay down and drink water and she'd come to get me after church. So I waited and was doing alright, when she came to get me my blood pressure was incredibly high but we thought we might be able to bring it down. I really was just waiting for Nate to get home. So I looked up the other symptoms of Pre-Eclampsia and started watching for them. Nate got home and I felt so much better just knowing he was there. I got a headache (symptom) and then started to get nauseated (symptom). We went down the street to my sister's house for a family birthday party and I just started feeling worse. My brother and my dad both said we should go to the hospital, so I called my midwife and she said she felt I should go in as well. So my dad and Nate gave me a quick blessing and we jumped in the car. I know it sounds weird but as we drove to the hospital I knew I had pre-eclampsia and I knew I was going to have to have the baby. Though I thought they might be able to hold off for at least a week or something like that.

We walked into the Labor and Delivery at Orem Community Hospital and they started watching my vitals. Almost immediately they called the midwife to have her come in and she confirmed I did in fact have Pre-Eclampsia. And it wasn't just Pre-Eclampsia but severe Pre-Eclampsia. For people who don't know what this is, basically I was having a reaction to the placenta. It raised my blood pressure incredibly high and I was at risk for seizures (Eclampsia) I didn't think I was at that point already but they confirmed I was in fact in the danger zone for having seizures. They started me on Magnesium Sulfate which is basically a strong muscle relaxant to help me not have a seizure. The only way to fix Pre-Eclampsia is to end the pregnancy. So I needed to have the baby for my own safety. They also started me on a blood pressure medication, and gave me my first steroid shot to help Ele's lungs to develop faster. They called for a paramedic transfer and got me ready to be moved to UVRMC because they have an amazing NICU Newborn Intensive Care Unit. They work with babies as early as I believe 24 weeks. Dena Walker was the midwife that came in to talk with me. She started to tell me what was going on and that the baby needed to be born. I just had a peaceful feeling and told her I knew Elenor needed to be born because of the Pre-Eclampsia and that I trusted the Doctors to do what needed to be done for both of us. I just kept smiling and tried to talk with all of the nurses, Susie and Donna were the two that had run my labs. As the paramedics took me out I had a farewell party waiting, they all waived goodbye and the paramedics were very impressed. Nathan followed us down so that he would have his car at the hospital. They took me into Labor and Delivery, I called Nate to tell him what room I was in and got ready for a very long night. I had Nate stay for a little while but then told him to go home (remember he hadn't been home yet since his trip) We needed him to go to work and so I told him to go home sleep and go to work and that I would call him if I needed him.

My night was spent with a wonderful nurse named Cynthia, she and I became fast friends since they had to have a consistant monitor on my babies heartbeat as well as checking my blood pressure every 10-20 minutes. I felt much better about having Nate go home because it would have been a miserable night for him and I knew the next few days would be interesting to say the least. The nurses learned quickly that I wasn't exaggerating that I had a very active baby. Every hour or so they had to come in and move the heart rate monitor because they would loose her. Nate said he pictured her kicking the monitor and then swimming away and hiding while she laughed at her own cleverness. It became part of the shift change briefing that my baby would be swimming everywhere. So each nurse came in and introduced themselves and then said, 'we hear we have an active one.' I laughed and told them absolutely. The best part of this is that normally the Magnesium Sulfate really affects the baby, but it didn't seem to touch Ele.